A timed charge does make sense, but isn't fool-proof. They really would have no way of knowing for sure if the Kazon didn't disarm it after going home. Janeway would never live with the uncertainty.

Another interesting question is why does Voyager have only two tri-cobalt torpedoes? Kind of random considering they only had something like 32 photon torpedoes to start with which seems abnormally low for a starship being sent on a dangerous search mission into the Badlands.

The thing is, going back always was purely academic. The heroes did not know how to work the tech, and did not have time to learn.

If the issue was only one of getting out before the Kazon killed them all, then a time bomb might work. But there was no getting out before the Kazon killed them all, because the killing would happen before the heroes would find a way to get out. That was made amply clear. (Although apparently not amply enough.)

Now, the alternative way of proceeding would have involved Janeway somehow defeating or delaying the Kazon. Time bombs don't directly help with that, and we saw mere threats of destruction didn't go far with the Kazon. But we might come up with ideas on how to fool the Kazon - and possibly even how to do that without relying wholly on nonsensical technobabble. Perhaps Janeway could surrender and arrange for a diversion that would (almost?) cost her own life? Perhaps she could make the Kazon fight each other for a while? But that's not a particularly realistic feat to burden on her, as the heroes would know little about the Kazon at this point. Perhaps Neelix would save them all with his local smarts and wily negotiating skills?

As for the tricobalts, they probably aren't particularly good weapons, or else Starfleet would have found ways to use them despite the treaties. Might be they are excellent demolition charges, but such things seldom work well as weapons. Yet perhaps what happens in Badlands stays in Badlands? Janeway might have been tasked with extracting Tuvok, arresting Chakotay, and then smoking out the rest of the Maquis by using illegal weapons to "salt the fields".

This might have been discussed many times, I'm not sure..... but here goes.

I watched 'Caretaker' recently and by destroying the Caretaker array Voyager is stuck far away from home.
How about leaving a timebomb on the array, it would be destroyed after Voyager got back home?

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Allow me to explain:

Voyager's presence in the Delta Quadrant was no accident. They were stranded there intentionally. Captain Janeway and Tuvok were involved in a Federation conspiracy. They were in collusion with the Caretaker and possibly the Cardassians to establish a military presence in the Delta Quadrant. In the months before Voyager's arrival, Neelix recorded the appearance of fifty two vessels, including a Cardassian warship. A remarkable coincidence. Only days before Voyager's arrival, the Cardassians were already in the Delta Quadrant. Neelix's sensors indicated that the ship vanished. Obviously, it was returned to the Alpha Quadrant. Why? The Cardassians were sent back to deliver strategic information regarding the Delta Quadrant.

At the same time the Cardassians were meeting with the Caretaker, Chakotay's Maquis vessel was infiltrated with a Starfleet agent, Tuvok. He guided the ship to prearranged coordinates in the Badlands, where the Caretaker locked onto it. Once they were pulled into the Delta Quadrant, Tuvok secretly transmitted final instructions to the Caretaker. A short time later, Captain Janeway guided Voyager to the same coordinates and was also pulled into the Delta Quadrant. All of these events took place within a matter of days.

Janeway told the crew that she destroyed the array so the Kazon couldn't use it to attack the Ocampa, but she intended to remain in the Delta Quadrant all along. If the Array had remained intact, the crew would have insisted on using it to return home.
Janeway ordered Commander Tuvok to destroy the array. He fired two tricobalt devices, weapons not normally carried on Federation Starships. Neither phasers nor torpedoes are capable of creating a tear in subspace. A tricobalt device is. As Tuvok detonated the device, a cloaked ship locked on to one of the array's tetryon reactors and pushed it through the tear into subspace, protecting it from the blast and hiding it from Voyager's sensors. But the Captain and Tuvok knew exactly where it was going. Once Voyager left the area, the reactor was retrieved and began a similar journey, carried by a series of vessels until it was finally delivered to Mister Tash, who used it to build the catapult, and waited for Voyager, and for the final phase of the mission. Captain Janeway planned to use the catapult to bring in more vessels from the Alpha Quadrant; a Federation-Cardassian invasion force.

Stardate 51008, Captain Janeway allows Kes to leave Voyager. Neelix said that Kes had suspicions about the Caretaker. Was the captain trying to silence her?
Stardate 51462, the Doctor's program is transmitted to a Starfleet vessel on the outskirts of the Alpha Quadrant. An attempt by Janeway to contact Earth or a secret communiqué informing Starfleet of her progress?
Stardate 50984, Janeway forges an alliance with the Borg.
Stardate 51762, a cease-fire with the Hirogen.
Stardate 52861, a non-aggression pact with the Terkellians. She called each incident diplomacy, but she was trying to establish a tactical infrastructure in the Delta Quadrant. Captain Janeway altered course 263 times in the name of exploration. In reality, she was mapping the region and collecting strategic data.

The thing is, going back always was purely academic. The heroes did not know how to work the tech, and did not have time to learn.

If the issue was only one of getting out before the Kazon killed them all, then a time bomb might work. But there was no getting out before the Kazon killed them all, because the killing would happen before the heroes would find a way to get out. That was made amply clear. (Although apparently not amply enough.)

Now, the alternative way of proceeding would have involved Janeway somehow defeating or delaying the Kazon. Time bombs don't directly help with that, and we saw mere threats of destruction didn't go far with the Kazon. But we might come up with ideas on how to fool the Kazon - and possibly even how to do that without relying wholly on nonsensical technobabble. Perhaps Janeway could surrender and arrange for a diversion that would (almost?) cost her own life? Perhaps she could make the Kazon fight each other for a while? But that's not a particularly realistic feat to burden on her, as the heroes would know little about the Kazon at this point. Perhaps Neelix would save them all with his local smarts and wily negotiating skills?

As for the tricobalts, they probably aren't particularly good weapons, or else Starfleet would have found ways to use them despite the treaties. Might be they are excellent demolition charges, but such things seldom work well as weapons. Yet perhaps what happens in Badlands stays in Badlands? Janeway might have been tasked with extracting Tuvok, arresting Chakotay, and then smoking out the rest of the Maquis by using illegal weapons to "salt the fields".

Timo Saloniemi

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Refresher.

TUVOK: Captain, I can access the system to send us back to Federation space, but it will take several hours to activate.
JANEWAY: Unless you help us.
CARETAKER: Oh, I wish I could but I have very little time left, so I have initiated a self-destruct programme.
JANEWAY: If you destroy the Array, we'll have no way to get home.
CARETAKER: The Ocampa's enemies can not be allowed to control this installation. In minutes, it'll be destroyed. You have to go. Go now.
(The Kazon ship hits the Array. The holographic barn turns into the high-tech room. There is a giant purple blob at one end.)
TUVOK: The Caretaker?
JANEWAY: Voyager, report.

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Tuvok can get them home, and the Kazon ACCIDENTALLY wreck the caretakers self destruct when they crash into the Array.

Janeway fights back the kazon.

Tuvok can send them home but... The Kazon will take the Ocampa's water?

(This all that the Caretaker was worried about.)

There is an off button on the array that will turn off the Ocampa shield protecting their city for the next 5 years until they run out of power.

So Kathryn couldn't leave the Array in play after they left, even if it would be weeks before the Kazon came back to try and take it.

The Prime Directive in this case was to protect the Kazon, but Janeway is racist and didn't see it that way. They are a scavenger race who upskill through piracy and salvage. The array is fair play, and Janeway cheated them out of an evolutionary jump becuase she did not like that they would probably eat the Ocampa given the opportunity.

It's still pretty simple: the way home calls for "hours" of peace and quiet, and the heroes have more like minutes, regardless of any self-destruct timers or burning fuzes or other such rigs.

That the Kazon want the place means they run their cost-benefit analysis for assault one way. When the place goes up in subspace flames, the analysis goes the other way and Janeway's still-combatworthy ship is free to sail. It's not about decisionmaking. It's only about unyielding parameters...

The prime directive would be to ensure the caretaker's wishes. Where does racism come into play exactly?

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The Caretaker is an incompetent senile rapist, seconds from death. Carrying through his will, is no one's priority.

Racism is probably the wrong word.

"Speciesism"

She's met half a dozen Kazon, didn't like them, and then screwed over the rest of the entire species, probably billions of Kazon, spread across a few dozen sectors, all becuase of the dislike she took to the first 12 she met. (Maybe they're all garbage people, but so were we 500 years ago. Remember Riker defending the Ferengi in The Last Outpost?)

JANEWAY: And what happens to the Ocampa after we're gone?
TUVOK: Captain, any action we take to protect the Ocampa would affect the balance of power in this system. The Prime Directive would seem to apply.
JANEWAY: Would it? We never asked to be involved, Tuvok, but we are. We are.

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Non Interference Policy.

If Voyager was not there, the Ocampa would be slaves or food. If Voyager was not there, the Kazon would have taken the Array, mastered the Godlike technology and conquered hundreds of nearby worlds, and become a Galactic Power. Or the Caretakers self destruct would have worked, and in 5 years, the Ocampan City's shields would have run dry, and then the Kazon would have sacked the city and taken the Ocampa's water.

(Remember the Ocampa hasn't had a presence on the Surface in a thousand years. The Kazon control local space and the Ocampan homeworld. The Ocampa are deadbeats squatting under a Kazon world, and the Caretaker "was" a deadbeat floating in Kazon space.)

The big winner if Voyager wasn't there was the Kazon.

The Prime Directive would have protected the Kazon.

But the Ocampa, who are basically cows, are cuter than the Kazon, so Kathryn illegally ignored the Prime Directive, picked sides in a fight that she was supposed to stay out of, trashing a galactic power, to save some cows.

If Voyager were not there, the Array would have been destroyed by the self destruct, and the Ocampa would have been safe. Tuvok was wrong, but he didn't have all the facts at the time.

And when does protecting the innocent become wrong, or racist? You say that the Ocampa were cattle, destined to become slaves(or food?) Yet then say Janeway was wrong for protecting them from that fate? How awful

Voyager's presence in the Delta Quadrant was no accident. They were stranded there intentionally. Captain Janeway and Tuvok were involved in a Federation conspiracy. They were in collusion with the Caretaker and possibly the Cardassians to establish a military presence in the Delta Quadrant. In the months before Voyager's arrival, Neelix recorded the appearance of fifty two vessels, including a Cardassian warship. A remarkable coincidence. Only days before Voyager's arrival, the Cardassians were already in the Delta Quadrant. Neelix's sensors indicated that the ship vanished. Obviously, it was returned to the Alpha Quadrant. Why? The Cardassians were sent back to deliver strategic information regarding the Delta Quadrant.

At the same time the Cardassians were meeting with the Caretaker, Chakotay's Maquis vessel was infiltrated with a Starfleet agent, Tuvok. He guided the ship to prearranged coordinates in the Badlands, where the Caretaker locked onto it. Once they were pulled into the Delta Quadrant, Tuvok secretly transmitted final instructions to the Caretaker. A short time later, Captain Janeway guided Voyager to the same coordinates and was also pulled into the Delta Quadrant. All of these events took place within a matter of days.

Janeway told the crew that she destroyed the array so the Kazon couldn't use it to attack the Ocampa, but she intended to remain in the Delta Quadrant all along. If the Array had remained intact, the crew would have insisted on using it to return home.
Janeway ordered Commander Tuvok to destroy the array. He fired two tricobalt devices, weapons not normally carried on Federation Starships. Neither phasers nor torpedoes are capable of creating a tear in subspace. A tricobalt device is. As Tuvok detonated the device, a cloaked ship locked on to one of the array's tetryon reactors and pushed it through the tear into subspace, protecting it from the blast and hiding it from Voyager's sensors. But the Captain and Tuvok knew exactly where it was going. Once Voyager left the area, the reactor was retrieved and began a similar journey, carried by a series of vessels until it was finally delivered to Mister Tash, who used it to build the catapult, and waited for Voyager, and for the final phase of the mission. Captain Janeway planned to use the catapult to bring in more vessels from the Alpha Quadrant; a Federation-Cardassian invasion force.

Stardate 51008, Captain Janeway allows Kes to leave Voyager. Neelix said that Kes had suspicions about the Caretaker. Was the captain trying to silence her?
Stardate 51462, the Doctor's program is transmitted to a Starfleet vessel on the outskirts of the Alpha Quadrant. An attempt by Janeway to contact Earth or a secret communiqué informing Starfleet of her progress?
Stardate 50984, Janeway forges an alliance with the Borg.
Stardate 51762, a cease-fire with the Hirogen.
Stardate 52861, a non-aggression pact with the Terkellians. She called each incident diplomacy, but she was trying to establish a tactical infrastructure in the Delta Quadrant. Captain Janeway altered course 263 times in the name of exploration. In reality, she was mapping the region and collecting strategic data.

If Voyager were not there, the Array would have been destroyed by the self destruct, and the Ocampa would have been safe. Tuvok was wrong, but he didn't have all the facts at the time.

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Tuvok said that exploding the array would alter the balance of power in this corner of the galaxy. Either the kazon became Gods, or they got some water and didn't become gods. That is two futures, one where the Galaxy is at war with the Kazon, and one where the Galaxy has no fucking idea what a Kazon is. Janeway a woman in charge of barely 140 people, decided the fate of trillions of trillions of people for the better or worse, and if it all went tits up, Earth would take the blame, and that's what the Prime Directive is really about: Limited liability.

And when does protecting the innocent become wrong, or racist? You say that the Ocampa were cattle, destined to become slaves(or food?) Yet then say Janeway was wrong for protecting them from that fate? How awful

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It's about protecting the useless. Janeway has limited resources. The federation has limited resources. Janeway wasted half her torpedoes (remember: THEY CAN'T MAKE ANY MORE!) protecting the Ocampa from the Kazon, then she moves on, and the Kazon come back a week later. Hell the kazon have a valuable cormaline refinery on Ocampa. They never left. We are not even sure if Janeway went back to Ocampa after the battle at the array.

Realistically if as soon as Voyager leaves parking orbit above Ocampa, the Kazon will reclaim the planet, then Janeway can have never have left that solar system, or they will all die. Voyagers crew will die of old age, like Caretaker did, protecting the endless generations of Ocampa from first the Kazon, and then the other hundred threats within spitting distance.